After 8 1/2 years at their current location, Avera Home Medical Equipment of Floyd Valley Hospital will be moving to 12 Fifth Ave NW in Le Mars. The new site is located in the remodeled Fifth Avenue Plaza building which is the former Wells Blue Bunny Ice Cream Parlor, conveniently located at the corner of Highways 75 and 3.

The store will be opening in their new location in January. The new location will offer a larger showroom for expanded products and services for your health and wellness. There is also a parking area with easy access for your shopping experience.

Starting with implementing the Care Team Model in 2004, Family Medicine Clinics have been working towards their ultimate goal of being certified as a Patient-Centered Medical Home in 2014. Though referred to as a home, a medical home is a concept that strives to deliver enhanced primary care for patients with their goals and interests taking center stage.

So what does this mean for our patients? Patient-Centered Medical Homes:

help patients develop long-term partnerships with the provider of choice, instead of series of sporadic and hurried visits

coordination of other clinician's care and community supports for their patients

enhance access to a patient's health team through expanded hours and online communication

promotion of shared decisions, so patients make informed choices and get better results.

Also a big goal in this process for Family Medicine Clinics is a patient portal. With the preliminary work being done in preparation, we look forward to this being offered to our patients very soon. The patient portal will allow patients secure, electronic access to communicate with their care team, request appointments, receive appointment reminders, review test results, refill medications, manage chronic conditions and seek patient education.

It has always been reassuring for us to live in a community with a wonderful hospital, but an experience we recently had with Floyd Valley Hospital last fall made us forever grateful! In September, our daughter Lindsey, who attends college three hours away, became very sick. Her muscles had become very rigid and she was having spasms much like a seizure. She did not feel well and was somewhat unresponsive. Over the course of the next 48 hours, she was taken to the ER where she attends school and was given IV fluid for what was diagnosed as dehydration. She was also prescribed a muscle relaxant 3 separate times as her symptoms increasingly worsened. We had been in touch with her roommate throughout this time;as she was very concerned and really felt Lindsey needed medical help but did not know what to do. I made the decision to drive to get her myself and was absolutely appalled at what I saw upon my arrival. Her entire body was rigid, she was shaking and she could not speak. She had to be helped to the car because she was not able to even walk on her own. It was a scary drive back to Le Mars. My husband, Scott, and I immediately took her to Floyd Valley Hospital and from the moment we arrived they knew her condition was serious. The team of doctors and nurses went right to work getting her stabilized and assessing her symptoms. Within no time we were told they suspected she had what is called Serotonin Syndrome and called for her to be transferred. When she arrived in Sioux City, the doctor taking care of her said that her condition was so severe that a matter of a few more hours could have been deadly for her. She was hospitalized for the next 5 days. Had the doctor at Floyd Valley Hospital not recognized the signs, who knows what may have happened? It is scary to think about. We were all treated with such care at FVH, the nurses even hugged me when we were leaving and said they would be praying for her. It was obvious that they truly cared! It is still hard for me to comprehend that a facility 9 times larger had sent her away, not once, but three times. It just proves that the size of a facility is not what is important, it is the quality of people who work there, the knowledge they possess, and the care they give that make it top notch. That is exactly what Floyd Valley Hospital is!!